Effectiveness of Responsibility Model for Personal and Social Development in Physical Education

Abstract

An experiment to assess the effects of the responsibility model on
students' personal and social development was conducted in a
school in Shah Alam, Selangor. Instruction using the specific
teaching strategies served as the intervention programme, and a
pre test-post test control group research design was utilised. The
study involved 146 Form One students (75 males and 71 females)
in four classes. The teaching of personal and social development
in physical education classes used the responsibility model
developed by Hellison (1985) and adapted to Malaysian physical
education curriculum. It was hypothesised that the responsibility
model would improve students' personal and social development
and would assist students in responding to sports and non-sports
related dilemmas. It was further hypothesised that gender and
level of competition did not have any influence on the-students' ability to respond to dilemmas. The hypotheses of the study
received significant support. Students in the experimental group
improved significantly after exposure to the responsibility model.
Gender and number of years in competitive sports had no effect on
the ability to adapt to the responsibility model. The implication of
the study showed that the responsibility model did influence
students' personal and social development. Therefore, it is
recommended that specific teaching strategies be used in teaching
physical education so that the aim of producing students who are
able to choose right from wrong and good from bad be no longer
taken for granted.